With the evolution of mobile networks, wireless access bandwidth keeps increasing, a traditional circuit domain disappears, all services are uniformly borne in a packet switched domain, and the mobile networks enter a mobile broadband (MBB, Mobile Broadband) era. High bandwidth provided by an MBB network, in combination with innovation of an intelligent terminal, causes a transfer of plenty of Internet applications from a fixed access network to a mobile network, that is, the so-called mobile Internet. Currently, the MBB network bears not only traditional telecommunications services, such as voice and short message services. Various enriched Internet applications, such as instant messaging, online shopping, online banking, search, information, and video, are already mobilized. Currently, most data traffic of the mobile Internet comes from these applications.
All information consumption in the mobile Internet era occurs by using a terminal-pipe-cloud architecture. Data is exchanged, by using a pipe service of the mobile broadband network, between an Internet application server based on an information technology (IT, Information Technology) cloud platform and an application client on an intelligent terminal, so as to meet mobile users' requirements for access at any time and any place and for always staying online. Benefiting from decoupling between mobile services and mobile pipes, most services of a mobile user come from an Internet application provider instead of a telecommunications operator. As Internet applications are rapidly developing, innovations keep emerging. In addition to the foregoing plenty of IT applications, an emerging enterprise or Internet of Things (M2M, Machine to Machine) industry is gradually carrying out services based on the MBB network.
After applications and a bearer network are decoupled, in current mobile applications, data is commonly transmitted by using a mobile pipe as a transparent dumb pipe. The applications and the network are unaware of each other, and therefore, inevitably, optimal user experience of the applications cannot be achieved, and optimal utilization efficiency of a network resource cannot be achieved. This is unfavorable to an application service provider, a mobile network pipe provider, or the operator.
Currently, a mobile broadband network defined by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP, The 3rd Generation Partnership Project) is a dedicated telecommunications network, which is relatively enclosed and rigid, and externally opens control capabilities of pipe charging and quality of service (QoS, Quality of Service) mainly through a policy and charging rules function (PCRF, Policy and Charging Rules Function) network element. Types of open capabilities are limited, and fast dynamic changes are not supported, causing a lack of resilience. In addition, currently, a PCRF network element of a mobile network externally provides only an Rx interface of policy control and charging control oriented to a service flow, and the Rx interface is currently used only for a proprietary service of the operator, thereby failing to effectively support a requirement for a customized mobile network for industrial applications or virtual operations.
For example, an enterprise or M2M industrial application based on the cloud platform often poses a particular requirement for the bearer network, including network functions, features, or capacity specifications. In addition, for example, some industries pose a stricter security or reliability requirement for a network, and some industries require high-bandwidth and low-latency guarantee. Some enterprise applications do not require complex charging or QoS guarantee, and do not require a high capacity, but require a lower cost. Current network architecture can hardly meet such a customization requirement.